New NHS Alliance Responds To King's Fund Analysis – Local Authority Public Health Budgets For 2017/18

New NHS Alliance (NNHSA) has responded to the latest King’s Fund research analysis showing that central government cuts are forcing councils around the country to drastically reduce spending on critical public health budgets and services.NNHSA Chief Executive, Merron Simpson, commented:“These cuts to public health lead us to question the government’s commitment to population health. We know that 80% of health is determined by the circumstances in which we live and not medical interventions and it’s time we started investing in line with that. Certainly the money needs to be used differently, but we continually see local authorities role in improving people’s health undermined”.NNHSA Chair, Heather Henry, said:“What we have not focused on in the past is how to create the enabling conditions for people to be well. We need to be much more inventive about how we invest for health creating methods to be employed across the NHS and local authorities – and for the money to be linked to outcomes for people; but simply cutting budgets in this way isn’t helpful”.